Admins: Providers Setup (Tutors, Advisors, Coaches, etc.)

All users signup for Penji with their @___.edu email. You, as admin, will certify certain users as "providers" (tutors, coaches, mentors, etc.) so that when they register they have access to certain features within Penji, including the Teach screen and Calendar screen. You will also certify them for certain courses in this step.

How to Certify Providers

1. Navigate to “Tutors” (or your word for Providers, such as Advisors or Coaches) on the side menu
2. Click the “Manage” header
3. Click “Download Template CSV”
4. Edit this CSV and add providers in exactly the same format as the sample. 
   • You can use either provider email (most common), provider SSO ID (not common, can be left blank), or both, to identify providers. If you’re a school where students have multiple valid email addresses, we recommend using provider SSO ID to identify them. Talk to your IT team if you don’t have that data for providers.
   • Ensure the course code you enter links up with a course that you’ve uploaded as an option - this is done by adding Subject Abbreviation and Course Number together from the related row in the Courses.csv you previously uploaded; do not include a space between the two, eg. "CHEM" and "1301" would be "CHEM1301" in this Providers CSV.
   • You can use an asterisk (*) following a string in this field to certify the provider for all courses that have at least those characters to start. For example, including "CHEM*|MATH1301|MATH1302|" in a provider's courses column would certify them for all courses starting with CHEM, and for MATH1031 and MATH1302. 
5. Upload providers by clicking “Choose File”, selecting the edited CSV, and clicking “Import CSV”
6. To make changes, you can download your most recent version under “Recent Imports” on the Manage tab and edit the document before re-uploading.

For reference, some schools want to certify a provider in every single subject. You can do this by certifying a provider in "*", an asterisk with no text before it. This will match all courses.

Here is another shortcut: A*|B*|C*|D*|E*|F*|G*|H*|I*|J*|K*|L*|M*|N*|O*|P*|Q*|R*|S*|T*|U*|V*|W*|X*|Y*|Z*

Eligibility Term to Term

Some communities have different courses each term. To avoid having to recertify your tutors each term, for the tutor.csv upload, courses that are no longer within the course.csv file can stay in the tutor.csv file. However, only courses within the last 10K courses "removed" from Penji will avoid an error message. If the course was not one of the last 10K courses removed, and it is not listed within the current course.csv file, the following error message will appear when uploading the tutor.csv: "The following courses were not found in the current upload or the previous term's upload and must be imported before tutors can be made eligible for them: "COURSENAME"". 

Note, if there is tutor eligibility that uses a "*", the system will look at the previous 10K courses that also meet the "*" criteria and pull that information into the Eligibility tab. For example, let's say CHEM301 is offered in the fall and only on the fall course.csv file. For spring, CHEM302 is offered and only on the spring course.csv file. If a tutor is eligible to teach "CHEM*", it does not matter if it is spring or fall, the Eligibility tab will list both  CHEM301 and CHEM302.

If a course is not listed on the course.csv file, students will not have the option to schedule an appointment or receive drop-in help in that course, even if a tutor is eligible. The course.csv file dictates to the system which courses are available for students to receive help in. Once a course is relisted in the course.csv file, the tutor will instantly be able to tutor in that course. 

Search vs. Eligibility

The “Eligibility” tab (see below) shows the providers that you have uploaded to Penji and the courses they are authorized for. It has no indication of whether or not they’ve joined or other activity. The “Search” tab, on the other hand, only shows providers who have signed up for Penji and have accessed their teach screen. That is the point at which their Penji account is upgraded to a provider account, unlocking Teach and other functions. Note, to edit providers' availability hours (see below) they must have signed up for their Penji account.

Provider Calendar Editing

Providers can edit their own calendars, or admins can edit them for them. More information about adding hours can be found within Admins: Set-Up Appointments Mode or Admins: Set-Up Drop-In Mode.

Collecting Provider Availability

Many centers need to collect provider availability so that they can decide on the hours that each provider will be scheduled for a given Penji mode. You can do this step using Penji's "Edit Appointment Availability" screen.

Note that you will need to add an appointment format to do this. Once you have collected provider availability, you can remove the appointment format. 

1. Ask providers to put in all of their availability for the term using Penji (https://web.penjiapp.com). Providers will do so from their teach screen > edit appointment availability.  
2. Once this is complete, download the full availability from the admin website, using Tutors > Manage > Export Tutor Calendars.
3. Decide on the hours that providers will work using their full availability. The tutor calendar export can provide general availability, and you can decide on providers' final hours for any of the Penji modes: Appointments, Drop-In, or Sections. 
4. With your schedule decided for a given mode, either edit provider availability directly from the admin panel or send providers their schedule and ask them to input it themselves. The below articles contain how to edit Provider hours for each mode:
   • Appointments: Tutors > Edit > Edit Appointment availability - Admins: Set-Up Appointments Mode
   • Drop-In: Tutor Hours > Add Hours / Edit Tutor Schedules - Admins: Set-Up Drop-In Mode
   • Sections: Upload the corresponding Section with the set time in the CSV file - Admins: Set-Up Sections (Groups) Mode

Provider Unavailable Times

Within Penji, an admin can set unavailable times for the entire community or for a specific provider. More information about community unavailable times can be found in, Admins: General Settings, under the header, "Unavailable times (Admin Panel)".

For weekly recurring sessions and sections, if the future session falls within a Provider Unavailable Time, that is added before the next session is scheduled, the system will "skip over" the unavailable time and create the next session at the next available date. For example, if a session meets every Monday, and there is a session scheduled for 5/30, with provider unavailable times 6/5-6/9, the next session in the series will be scheduled for 6/13, the next available Monday. 

If a session (appointment or section) is already scheduled, adding a provider unavailable time will not cancel the session. Provider Unavailable Times will only block future sessions from being scheduled, and will not affect already scheduled sessions. 

Below are video examples of how the Provider Unavailable times affect students looking for appointments and/or Drop-In availability. 

To add a provider unavailable time, you will navigate to the provider's tab > select a provider > add the unavailable time. Each time an admin adds or removes unavailability, the provider will be notified through email, as shown below. 

Provider Unavailable Time Emails:

Adding Time:

Removing Time:

Outlook and Google Calendar Conflict Checking

Providers have the ability to connect their Outlook and/or Google Calendar to Penji. This is done from either the mobile app or web.penjiapp.com. With this integration, Penji will check the provider's available times from their Outlook or Google Calendar, compare it to the available time slots in their Penji Calendar, and remove any conflicting times from their availability. More information on connecting provider Outlook or Google Calendars can be found in this article: Providers: Connecting Your Calendar (Outlook, Google Calendar).